


When You Need A Friend To Carry You

by notalone91



Series: Drabble Shuffle [16]
Category: IT (Movies - Muschietti), IT - Stephen King
Genre: Implied/Referenced Underage Drinking, M/M, Moving On, Multi, Polyamory, Teen Years, Underage Drinking
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-24
Updated: 2020-01-24
Packaged: 2021-02-27 03:46:58
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,008
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22380529
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/notalone91/pseuds/notalone91
Summary: Prompt from Tumblr:  Idk if you'd do Streddie but it can be platonic "Someone will coming running and I know they'll take you home."It's the fall of their junior year and Stan's parents have some jarring news for him.
Relationships: Eddie Kaspbrak/Richie Tozier/Stanley Uris
Series: Drabble Shuffle [16]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/234726
Comments: 2
Kudos: 33





	When You Need A Friend To Carry You

-1992-

Slow footsteps crunched through the dried leaves on the floor of the barrens. It had only been dark for the better part of three hours, but the temperature had dropped off radically. Richie had known something was up when Stan had gotten fidgety while they were watching Eddie’s track meet. A lewd comment about Eddie’s legs and ass normally brought out the snippy, protective boyfriend in Stan, not an awkward, fumbling acquiescence. Before long he had split and Richie was torn between staying to watch one boyfriend and taking off after the other. Seeing as how he was the former’s ride, he decided to stick by. Besides, two heads were better than one when it came to Stanley and Eddie just got Stan in a way Richie was always baffled by. He could center them both, but he could never understand. The boys had parked by the road and decided to walk up the path, fearing the morning’s rain leaving the ground too soft for Richie’s car.

They bickered along the way, Eddie worrying and rambling off a litany of ways Stan could be dead by now and Richie quickly shooting back the ways in which Stan was not likely to succumb to any of those fates. Just as Eddie was reaching for Richie’s hand to pull them back toward civilization, up ahead, almost out of sight, Stan was perched on a low branch of an old oak tree, a six-pack of clear bottles beside him. Richie breathed a sigh of relief and offered up a steady hand to help him down.

“I’m not going and you can’t- can’t make me,” Stan hiccuped through tears and the remains of whatever swill his lab partner’s older sister had bought him- Xena or some shit. Whatever it was, it wasn’t helping. His parents were really selling their house and he was actually going to have to leave. He was going to be alone. If they managed to get him back to his house, that was it. He was going to have to tell them he was leaving- that it had to be over.

Richie and Eddie exchanged a concerned nod, and Richie helped Eddie up into the tree beside Stan, swinging himself onto a nearby limb. “Going where, Stan the man?”

Hanging his head sadly, Stan struggled to say it. “Georgia.” Richie’s grip nearly faltered. Eddie turned, swinging his leg over the branch so he was facing Stan. He surveyed his boyfriend carefully.

Georgia? What the fuck did he mean by that? Had he meant Georgie? That was years ago and no one was going anywhere to do with that fucking clown ever again. How were they making him go to Georgia? Was there some class trip Eddie had forgotten about because his mother would never let him go?

Sensing the questions in his mind, Stan deflated a bit, leaning in to rest his chin on Eddie’s shoulder. “My parents are selling the house. Dad’s being transferred to Macon.”

For the first time in his seventeen years of existence, Richie Tozier was speechless. He maneuvered himself across to the branch where his boys were and tugged them under his arm like he’d done a hundred thousand times and thought he would do a hundred million more. They were supposed to have time. They had plans. They were supposed to have two more years together. They were supposed to go to college together. They were supposed to leave Derry together. To go somewhere they could be themselves. Georgia was not exactly the first (or twenty-first) place Richie would have imagined Stan being free, even if it was without them. A largely antisocial gay jew in the dirty south? The rest of the Losers would have a field day with that… if only most of them would answer a letter now and then. They still saw Mike occasionally, but the rest were gone.

That wasn’t a particularly calming thought, either. Would Stan fall out of touch as readily as they had? Letters went unanswered. Calls were probably screened. It had lost its sting with each departure, but the ache was still there. With Stan, it would just hurt. Especially since it was so unexpected.

The boys sat in companionable silence for a while, none sure of what to say, until it got too cold. When a shiver coursed through Eddie, even tucked between his two favorite people in the whole world, it was time to go. Richie jumped off the branch, helping Stan and Eddie down behind him. Together, they made the trip back to Richie’s car quickly, even guiding a far more drunk than expected Stan. They reached Richie’s house, climbed up the stairs to his bedroom and dropped into a pile in the center of the carpet. As Stan started to cry, not wanting to accept that this was all going to end, Richie and Eddie could do no more than hold him. They made no promises. Three summers before, they’d made promises enough.

-2016-

After Mike’s fateful phonecall, Richie tapped out a quick Google search with 3 keywords: Stan Uris Macon? Just as he was settling in on the list of phone numbers, trying to make a decision, his screen lit up. Before he could even piece together a quip to greet the unknown number with, a familiar patter speak came flicking through the speaker. “Richie, I don’t know why, but we have to go to Georgia before we go back to Derry. Do you know why? It’s this pull. Something bad’s gonna happen if we don’t- that’s not to say that this whole fucking thing isn’t horrible. I already totaled my fucking car, Richie, but we have to and I don’t know why.”

“Take a breath, Eds-”

“Don’t fucking call me ‘Eds.’” When he finally did as he was bid, it sunk in what he was saying. “Richie…” he said, as it all washed over him. “What are we going to do?”

Richie’s heart hammered in his chest. “We get Stan and we do this together.”

“Together.”

**Author's Note:**

> Ficlet Ask Meme- Send me a ship and a lyric and I'll write you something short and sweet.


End file.
